I've actually started work on this. I have some code which Windows users would like to use, but which only runs on Linux. We've tried porting it to Windows, but the Windows API we need (it's Mozilla - nsIProcess() ) is broken and has been for years as we've found out. So the agreed-upon solution is to provide the code in LiveCD or USB-disk form.

While my live CD/thumbdrive image would be a bit different from the VL standard (it would also include the mozilla-based apps along with graphicsmagick and its dependencies), presuming that all goes well, I will be essentially compiling unetbootin on VL as a VL-6.0 package, and I would be happy to document my steps so that someone else can create a clean build for distribution.

That said, I'm a newbie so far as creating live distros, so... although the package would be compile for VL-6.0, the live CD would be based on VL-5.9, since this is the latest live CD available.

I'll post more later as I have either succeeded or failed to compile this.

1) Download the sources. 2) Create a directory such as Unetbootin-319. >mkdir Unetbootin-319This is necessary because the source packager created a tar-bomb which unpacks into the current directory.3) Move the source tarball into the directory you've created. >mv unetbootin-source-319.tar.gz Unetbootin-319/4) Change into the directory >cd Unetbootin-3195) Unpack the source: >tar -xzvf unetbootin-source-319.tar.gz6) Ensure that you have qt4 installed (use slapt-get if necessary)7) Run the INSTALL script provided. This really just compiles the code: >./INSTALLYou'll see a bunch of stuff like this:

12) Using your favorite text editor, create a slack-desc file that looks something like this. Spacing andnumber of lines matter. See http://www.linuxpackages.net for a howto.

Quote

unetbootin: UNetbootin 319 Create bootable USB thumbdriveunetbootin:unetbootin: UNetbootin allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for aunetbootin: variety of Linux distributions from Windows or Linux, withoutunetbootin: requiring you to burn a CD. You can either let it download oneunetbootin: of the many distributions supported out-of-the-box for you, orunetbootin: supply your own Linux .iso file if you have already downloadedunetbootin: one or your preferred distribution is not on the list.unetbootin: Homepage: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/unetbootin: Author: Geza Kovacsunetbootin: Package Created By: Tim Niiler

13) Copy this file into package/usr/install/ . Since I created it in my Unetbootin-319 directory, I typed: >cp slack-desc package/usr/install/

14) Change into your package directory >cd package

15) Become root >su

16) Type: > makepkg unetbootin-319-i586-xxx.tgzwhere xxx is an identifier. If for VectorLinux 6.0 it should be something like vl6. If for personal use, it is generally taken to be your initials, and which iteration of the package you have tried to build. In my case, this is 1tan. You will see:

Quote

Searching for symbolic links:

No symbolic links were found, so we won't make an installation script.You can make your own later in ./install/doinst.sh and rebuild thepackage if you like.

This next step is optional - you can set the files and directories inyour package to some sane permissions. If any of the files or dirs inyour package have special permissions, then DO NOT reset them here!

Would you like to reset all directory and file permissions and settheir ownerships to root:root? [y/N]

17) Select y for yes.

18) You'll see a bunch of makepkg noise, and then if all is well in the world, you'll have a package that looks like this: unetbootin-319-i586-vl6.tgz

.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------.| UNetbootin 319 Create bootable USB thumbdrive || || UNetbootin allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for a || variety of Linux distributions from Windows or Linux, without || requiring you to burn a CD. You can either let it download one || of the many distributions supported out-of-the-box for you, or || supply your own Linux .iso file if you have already downloaded || one or your preferred distribution is not on the list. || Homepage: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ || Author: Geza Kovacs || Package Created By: Tim Niiler |'-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'

Now understand that this method of building the package will not deal with dependencies. Perhaps someone who is a bit better versed in including dependencies could highlight how to deal with this. Also, in my limited research, it seems that one could modify the UNetbootin source to point to the VL 5.9 Live iso for download so that the image would not have to live locally for it to be installed. Also, a *runtime* dependency seems to be 7zip, although the program loaded without it. I have also not yet tried to create a bootable thumbdrive yet. I have only created a package without either checkinstall or vpackager.